CONtradictiory: a CONfusion Sidestory
by DaAmazingMeepers
Summary: Ryou contemplates his history with Bakura. What are they to each other, anyway?  Enemies?  Friends?  Brothers?


Hey guys, how're y'all doing? This is a little CONfusion side story that popped into my head a few months ago, and I'm finally getting around to actually writing it. But while it's meant to be a CONfusion side story, you don't necessarily have to have read CONfusion and its sequel, CONfusion CONtinued to get this one, as the happenings in CONfusion CONtinued are only mentioned briefly in this story. It is recommended though. Hope you enjoy!

Disclaimer: I don't own Yu-Gi-Oh or its characters, places, or things. That's why it's called a FANfiction.

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><p>"He's <span>where<span>?" screamed a very angry voice through the phone.

Ryou Bakura winced at the tone of his agent, Mr. Aki's voice. "I told you, Atsu is at a convention, and he isn't going to be back until late Sunday night. You didn't have any complaints when we informed you about it last week."

"That was before we got the call from CamCam magazine asking for you and him to be on the cover! Oh this is bad!"

Ryou sighed. Mr. Aki was always making changes to their schedule without informing them. "Well there isn't anything we can do about it now except wait for him to come home on Sunday. It's not like I can—"

Just then, the door slammed open and Bakura tramped in carrying three plastic bags stuffed to the brim. He dropped them next to Ryou's seat in the armchair and headed for his bedroom, calling over his shoulder, "Hey Ryou, I'm home."

Ryou stared at him with wide eyes. Bakura had a tendency of doing unexpected things, but this was somewhere near the top. On the other end of the line, Mr. Aki was saying, "Who was that? It sounded like Atsu, is he back?"

Ryou brought the phone back up to his ear. "Um, yeah, it appears he came back early."

"Oh thank kami!" Mr. Aki sighed with relief. "I'll expect you both in my office tomorrow at three then. See you later, Ryou baby."

And with that, Ryou heard a click and then dial tone. Ryou sighed and hung up. He knew better than to try and convince the pushy man that he really wasn't up to another shoot.

Bakura walked back into the room. "Was that Aki on the phone?"

Ryou nodded. "He wants us to do a cover shoot for CamCam."

Bakura groaned, plopping himself down onto the couch. "Give me a break, we just did a shoot last Tuesday!"

After Bakura had gotten his own body, he had taken the name "Atsu" and had started going to Domino High with Ryou under the guise of Ryou's long lost cousin and had promised not to torture Ryou or any of his friends anymore. Of course, no one believed him at first, but after six months of him not doing anything, they decided that he was on the up-and-up. They still kept an eye on him though.

Ryou looked curiously at Bakura and asked, "What are you doing home so early? I thought you weren't going to be back until tomorrow night?"

Bakura was amusing himself by picking his ear with his pinky finger. "I wasn't, but there was some trouble with the Pharaoh's girlfriend and we ended up having to come home early. Pity, the one day I did get to go to the convention was rather fun. I may have to go again next year."

Ryou nodded in agreement. He had gone for one day last year, and he had to admit, it was rather fun, even with all the people asking him to kiss Yugi or Marik. "What happened with Randy, is she okay?" he asked, referring to Yami's girlfriend.

Bakura snorted. "If you can call being disowned by her mother for wanting to date the Pharaoh okay."

Ryou winced. He had heard from Yami that there was some tension between Randy and her mother, but he didn't realize how much, the poor girl. Suddenly, Bakura sat up, searched around in one of the plastic bags he had brought home, and tossed something wrapped in plastic at Ryou, which he caught with much fumbling. "That reminds me," he said, "I got something for you while I was at the convention."

Ryou warily unwrapped the package and found a Totoro sweatshirt. Totoro was one of the few things that they had discovered were the same about theirs and Randy's dimensions. "I got one for me too." Said Bakura.

Ryou gave him a look. "You didn't steal this, did you?"

Bakura grinned. "Who, me?"

Ryou sighed. That settled it, he had stolen it. "What else did you take?"

Bakura gestured at the bags. "It's all in there if you want to look." He then stood up and headed for the kitchen. "I'm hungry, do we have any jello left?"

Ryou picked up one of the bags to look through it. "Behind the milk." He said.

While Bakura finished off the last of the jello, Ryou sifted through the bag in his lap. He opened one of the boxes of coffee flavored pocky and ate a few sticks. He blushed at the covers and names of some of the anime hentai DVDs that Bakura had "acquired". At least now Bakura had a body of his own so that he didn't have to pretend that it all belonged to himself.

Stetting the bag down again, he watched Bakura devour the jello like it was going out of style and then go back to the fridge for more food. He didn't know when he had become so…accustomed to Bakura's presence. If anyone had heard his whole story they would probably be shocked, asking, "Why do you let him live with you after all he's done to you? It's not like he deserves any of your mercy."

And he or she would be right – Bakura didn't deserve any of Ryou's mercy. Ryou had had his hand stabbed on a role-playing castle tower, his arm sliced, his chest imbedded with the Millennium Ring's spikes, and his mind generally screwed with. He had been hospitalized on more than one occasion for several weeks or even months at a time. He had lost almost every friend he had ever tried to make, whether it was because they had been killed or because they refused to trust him after things they thought he had done to them. All of these things and more had happened because of Bakura.

And yet, he couldn't bring himself to hate him. He did at first, but not any more. Now he viewed him almost as a lazy older brother figure that he had to keep out of trouble. There were yaoi fangirls at Domino High who assumed that there was something more to their relationship, what with how they lived in the same apartment and Ryou's somewhat feminine personality contrasted with Bakura's rough and gruff personality. Of course, this was a load of crap. Both Ryou and Bakura were attracted to women, regardless of what the stupid fangirls thought.

The reason Ryou couldn't hate Bakura was a rather simple one. Ryou was a big supporter of second chances, and had been told repeatedly that he was almost too nice. Regardless of how much pain and suffering Bakura had caused him in the past, he couldn't help but think, _'If I had done something horrible and wanted to start over, I would want someone to give me a second chance.'_

These thoughts were even stronger when he became aware of Bakura's back-story. Bakura himself had told Ryou of his past in Kul-Elna. The look in Bakura's eyes as he described the day when his village was wiped out was enough to break Ryou's heart. As Ryou watched him stuff his face now, there wasn't any of that sadness showing in his eyes, but Bakura had always been a good liar.

Suddenly, Bakura came back into the living room holding a leftover chicken leg and plopped back down onto the couch. "Hey Ryou, check out that bag in the middle." He said.

Raising an eyebrow, Ryou gently picked up the bag and looked into it. Both eyebrows went up when he saw what was in the back. "Is that…?"

"A fake duel disk," Bakura finished, chuckling, "Yep, some lame dealer tried to sell it to me, and I thought it was about the funniest thing I'd ever seen. I figured you'd find it just as funny as I did, so I brought it back to show you."

Ryou gently turned the plastic replica over in his hands, running his fingers over the grooves and niches. It reminded him of the time that Bakura had accidentally turned on Ryou's duel disk in the apartment.

"_Ryou, I'm bored!" Bakura complained loudly._

_Ryou sighed. He had been on his way to the kitchen when Bakura had started complaining. "Well I can't do anything about that until I finish with the dishes." He replied._

_Bakura grumbled and muttered and looked around for something to entertain himself with, and happened to spot a very familiar object. "Hey Ryou, is this your duel disk?"_

_Ryou looked out the kitchen doorway to see Bakura fiddling with his duel disk. "Yes, now put that down before you break something." He said, returning to the sink._

"_Oh come on," Bakura said loudly, "Anything that comes out of this thing is just a hologram, it's not like it's gonna—"_

_Suddenly, Ryou heard a loud crash, and he froze. He dried off his hands and dashed to the living room. Bakura had accidentally turned the duel disk on, and the hologram projectors had ejected out of the sides – one was imbedded into the wall, and the other had broken the screen of Ryou's small television set. Bakura looked very startled and when he saw the look on Ryou's face, he gave a nervous grin. "Eheh…oops?"_

_Ryou pointed at the door. "Out."_

_Bakura looked surprised. "Huh?"_

"_You heard me, go, shoo, find somewhere else to spend the night!"_

_Bakura growled. "Little light, you can't seriously—"_

"_Out__."_

_Bakura stomped his foot. "Well fine then, I don't need you! I'll stay at Marik's place!" And with that, he stomped off._

Ryou chuckled lightly at the memory. He hadn't let him back into the apartment for a week, but that hadn't stopped Bakura from banging on the door every day and demanding Ryou would let him back in.

Ryou had become a lot more assertive since Bakura had gotten his own body. Ryou figured it was because he was now dealing with a problem to his face instead of inside him, but he knew that everyone else thought that Bakura was just a bad influence. Ryou had actually gone after Bakura with a knife when Bakura had broken one of Ryou's mother's oldest teacups. Ever since that incident, Bakura had shown more respect for Ryou and his things.

That wasn't to say that Ryou had become some crazy maniac now. He was still the gentler, more soft-spoken of the two fluffy whitettes. He just wasn't a complete pushover anymore.

Ryou's cat, Bast jumped into his lap, startling him out of his trip down memory lane. He scratched her behind her ear and she rubbed against him affectionately. Bakura hated Ryou's cat with a vengeance, but he knew better than to do anything to Ryou's little feline friend.

Suddenly, Bakura stood up, picked up the phone and started dialing. Bast jumped off of Ryou's lap, startled by Bakura's sudden movements. Ryou raised an eyebrow. "Who are you calling?"

"Aki," said Bakura, sounding a little grumpy. "I'm telling him that we're not doing the CamCam shoot. We've been working our butts off this past month, and I need a break."

Ryou was surprised. "You really think he's going to agree to that?"

Bakura laughed out loud. "No, at least not at first. But I think I have something that will…persuade him."

Ryou was worried. Bakura's methods of "persuasion" involved one of two things: bribery, or blackmail. Both were not good options. Of course, if Bakura was determined to go through with it, there wasn't anything Ryou could do to stop him.

While Ryou waited for Bakura to get off the phone, he picked up the final bag of goodies that Bakura had brought home to look through it. He wasn't really concentrating on it though. For some reason, his mind kept wandering back to when Bakura and him had first been scouted for modeling.

"_You two, may I have a moment of your time?"_

_Ryou and Bakura looked up in surprise. They had been drinking coffee at the mall when heard this man talking. "Are you talking to us?" Ryou asked._

_The man nodded. "Allow me to introduce myself, my name is Sojiro Aki, and I couldn't help but notice your rather…unique physical proprieties." The man said, handing them a business card._

_Ryou looked at the card, but Bakura just rolled his eyes. "Look pal," he said, "If this is your obscure way of hitting on us—"_

"_Astu!" interrupted Ryou reproachfully._

_However, the man simply laughed. "No, actually I work for a modeling agency, and I want to know if you two are interested in doing a little photo shoot."_

_Bakura raised an eyebrow. "It's not for some porno, is it?"_

_Ryou rolled his eyes. Leave it to Bakura to make this perverted. Although he had a point, it was a bit suspicious. But the man shook his head. "Oh no, it's just for an independent fashion magazine called Koanuma Ahega. You don't have to give me an answer right away, just call the number on the card when you've both reached a decision. I do need an answer by the end of the week though. Please consider accepting my offer."_

_And with that, the man left. Ryou looked at the black and white business card again. "Well, he seemed genuine. And Koanuma Ahega is growing in popularity. Maybe we should check it out."_

_Bakura snorted. "Give me a break, Ryou. Modeling? And not even for a porno? As if that's going to happen."_

But it did happen, and before they knew it, they were the most sought-after male models in Japan. Bakura had even recently gotten an offer for a role in a movie (as the villain of course). However, their new popularity meant that it was a lot harder in school and they were busy a lot.

Ryou's thoughts were brought back to the present just as Bakura ended his phone conversation with, "I knew you would see things my way. Pleasure doing business with you, Mr. Aki, we'll see you on Wednesday." And with that, he hung up.

Ryou raised an eyebrow. "I take it we don't have to go to Mr. Aki's office tomorrow."

Bakura grinned. "You would be correct in assuming that." He said, and grabbed his trench coat.

"Where are you going?" asked Ryou.

"Where else on a Saturday night? To some party somewhere."

And with that he walked out the door. Ryou sighed. He knew Bakura was going to come home drunk, break a few things, probably throw up on the carpet, and Ryou would be left to clean up the mess and make Bakura black coffee in the morning for his hangover. He felt like an overworked wife.

But he wasn't – he was just little Ryou, a boy with an unruly and irresponsible Yami that he had to clean up after. Oh well, he could handle it.

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><p>Afternote: So here's my first little Ryou-centric fanfic. It's kinda short, but considering how little dialogue there was in this story, I'm actually rather proud of how fast I got it done. It took me less than 48 hours to complete, and that's a record for me.<p>

Anyway, sorry if Bakura seems a little OOC, but I'm not very good at portraying him. I'm better at writing nice characters it seems.

Also, just little factoids, both of the names of the fashion magazines in this story were based off of names of actual fashion magazines in Japan. CamCam was based off of CanCam, and Koanuma Ahegi was based off of Koakuma Agehi. Also, the name I gave to Bakura, Atsu, is Egyptian, and means "twin" ironically. I tried to look up if it means anything in Japanese as well, but I didn't search very hard, and I didn't find anything.

Please review and tell me what you thought!

~DaAmazingMeepers =3


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